


A Turn of the Season

by beingheretoo



Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Identity Crises, Parties, Prehistoric Gelfling Culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:28:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28227660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beingheretoo/pseuds/beingheretoo
Summary: Long before the arrival of the urSkeks, the Gelfling celebrate their connection to the Crystal of Thra, and to the ever-changing natural world.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	A Turn of the Season

**Author's Note:**

> Who's ready for another Thra-athon fanfiction entry? Here's mine ;)  
> The theme was _holiday_.

He scampers down the hill to the village. Mila and Ord, children like him, each grab him by a hand and together they race to the Cradle Tree, past the slow line of grown-ups dragging slabs of stone through the twilit woods.

“See the buds?” asks Mila. “The Cradle Tree here in the forest and his sister on the plains are both ready to blossom. That’s how we know that the Turn of the Season has come.”

Mother speaks not of seasons but of ninets and trine, but that’s because she studies the suns and the stars. The Gelfling do not. Their concerns are with the movements of herds and the swelling of fruit on the vine, and with the voice of the Crystal.

As dusk turns to night, the stones are raised to circle the Great Tree. The elder speaks. “Tonight we celebrate the Turning, and ask the Cradle Tree to share with us the wisdom of the Crystal.”

The Gelfling arrange themselves around the tree in loops, like petals. They press their hands gently to those of their neighbors, the Gelfling closest to the tree placing their free hands on its bark. Between each petal, a line of Gelfling reaches out like a spoke to connect tree trunk to standing stone. 

He presses one hand to Mila’s and another to a stone, a position of honor. The dreamfast begins. Through the Cradle Tree, the minds of these Gelfling link to those of the Gelfling at the Low Tree to the south, and to the Crystal buried deep within the mountainside. 

His mind mingles with a hundred minds, flashes of joy and fear and sadness, plus a thousand shades in between. Their minds fall together through the Tree into the crystal veins connecting them to the rocks, the plants, the speechless beasts of Thra. Impressions of Great Trees beyond the two by which the Gelfling now dwell flutter into mind, and he feels—both within himself and in the hearts of the Gelfling—a yearning to see them someday with his own eyes.

As the Gelfling break off the dreamfast, a flash of blue light fills the night sky, blinding. His eyes refocus on a transformed canopy, the buds of the Cradle Tree blossomed into a thousand flowers. The Gelfling wonder at them, and at the standing stones, now riddled with symbols, images, knowledge of where to seek game and fresh herbs and berries over the coming season. 

“Look,” says an elder, “Brother Raunip’s stone…”

The very geometry of the inscriptions is different: ellipses, rings, triangles connecting a smattering of dots. There, above all, in the script his mother taught him: _Look to the stars._

The night deepens. The Gelfling play their flutes and dance beneath the blossoms of the Cradle Tree. Raunip dances, but his eyes drift back to the stone. _Why is mine different?_ he thinks. _Why am I different?_ But it is not a question that the Crystal will answer fully for many trine to come.


End file.
